Not Hot for Teacher: The Bachelor Recap, Week 2

Welcome back for another week! Where were we? I think last we left off, Ben sucked. Let’s check if this is still the case. It is? It is. This status remains unchanged.

We pick back up with some interviews with the ladies. Lace has sobered up and regrets her antics from opening night. Oh man. Lace sorry to tell you this but you’re a nutter butter and the world had front row seats to your drunken implosion. You would be better off moving to a Dakota of your choice and changing your name. Tartan? Doily? 80% Synthetic Polyester Blend? Lotta possibilities there. “I’m not a crazy girl at all,” she says. Let’s continue to explore this claim as the episode unfolds.

Ben is back at his undisclosed location putting on pants. ABC wants to be sure we are all aware that Ben is a person who puts pants on.

Tonight’s group date is a trip to Bachelor High. The production team has taken over a school and the women are broken into groups for several rounds of competition. Ben says “High school is where I have some of my fondest memories.” Gawd he WOULD say that. He is totally the guy who peaked in high school.

In one of the rounds the floozies bob for apples. Ben remarks, “One of the most attractive things about this date is seeing these women really put themselves out there.”

He continues: “If my teachers in high school would have looked as good as these women I would have paid attention a lot more.”

Ben are we looking at the same human specimens here?

Next is where the episode really came together wonderfully for me. For the floozies’ second challenge, they are provided with a borderless map of the U.S. and several cut outs of states. Their mission is to 1) identify Indiana and 2) place it correctly on the map.

Ben says, “I think this is going to be easy for the women. I’m not asking them to place Indonesia on a map. It’s just Indiana.” Oh Ben Ben Benny Ben BEN! Oh ye of excessive faith! But I mean God forbid one of these morons COULD place Indonesia on a map. Intelligence is such an unattractive quality nowadays.

Two of the teams seem to be managing this Indiana task well, but Becca and Jojo are struggling.

“Is that Oregon?” –Jojo

Recall that Becca indicated in her ABC bio that if she could be anything, she would be Meredith Grey or a dolphin. This assignment is predictably challenging for her.

Here was Jojo and Becca’s attempt. I actually laugh aloud for a while.

Following the group date they all enjoy a Signature Bachelor Rooftop Cocktail Party. Lace is back claiming “I’m not that person.” Lace you make that person look like a picture of mental health and normalcy! You are like the that person TO the that person! She also keeps pronouncing Jubilee’s name like “Joobly” which I find hilarious and will henceforth adopt.

Let’s see, what else. I hate to appearance snark but Becca is looking like she aged five years in the last 10 months. This fills me with a sick sense of joy because she’s well on her way to fulfilling this prediction I made about her future last season. Ben escorts Jojo to the peak of the rooftop and she’s yammering like an idiot (Ohmygooddddddddd this is unbelievabuuuuuuuhhhhhllllllll we’re up so hiiiiiiiiiiiiigh) seriously somebody pass me some hedge clippers to clobber her with.

Crazy Olivia gets the rose.

“Everyone else please feel free to help yourself to a lime garnish,” Ben says. No actually he doesn’t but I wish so badly that he did.

Caila’s one-on-one date is next. It’s so awful and stupid I can’t even. Ice Cube and Kevin Hart are guest starring and they go swim in a hot tub store. I mean the hot tub date is a staple of the show but at least they’re usually at a ski resort or a scenic vista or whatever… today they’ve got, like, chlorine testing kits behind them. And, I don’t know, like that big green net you use to scoop debris and dead pigeons out with. I mean I guess it’s supposed to be funny in an ironic kind of way but it just ends up awkward.

Another group date is next. They go to a “Love Lab” where they analyze, I don’t know, fake science stuff. We find out Ben is a person who pronounces the word data “day-ta” so I know everything I need to know about this individual really. For one of the exercises they blindfold Ben and make him smell all the girls. The Bunson Honeydew fake scientist is there writing Ben’s observations on a clipboard or whatever.

He is describing most of the smells favorably (“Like… a giant raspberry!”– actual quote) but when he smells Samantha he declares her “a little sour.” OMG. Now I like to think I have a healthy sense of self but if someone ever told a national television viewing audience that I smelled bad, I would probably need to go live in a cave forever. A woman just wouldn’t recover from that. Sheesh.

Now we’re back at the house for the last cocktail hour before it’s rose acceptin’ time. Lace is crying as she confesses her deepest life traumas to Ben. No joke, the total tonnage of these traumas is… she had bad bangs as a kid and her brother made fun of her on the bus. GOOD GOD! This is terrible even as far as Bachelor sob stories go. I mean Joobly spent half her childhood in a Haitian orphanage but LACE’S BROTHER MADE FUN OF HER. Let’s all cry together. I made her an awareness ribbon and a hashtag:

Ben presents a few gifts as the episode drones on. He had a picture printed for Lauren B; then he has like a goofy award ribbon for an inside joke with some other chick. Then he pulls Amanda aside and they craft some little hair clips to send home to her abandoned daughters. All snark aside, I think Ben is actually probably a really sweet guy. Dumb as a chunk of limestone, but sweet. This is why he makes for such boring TV.

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I like to think of this as a mom blog with benefits. We reject niches and do it all here— the snarky, the sentimental, the hilarity of the everyday. Always fun, never lame, may contain traces of tree nuts.